@julian said:
I'm all for implementing features if there is a demand or direct benefit, but while I know discourse does this, the main thing I have to ask is WHY?!
In my opinion, it offers nothing but information clutter to the end user.
I honestly don't care how many times people have clicked the link, I only care whether it's blue or purple.
When I go into a topic, I go there to see the new replies to that topic, not to be viralised off to some other link, "Buzzfeed style"
That's my opinion, of course, and prevailing trends usually dictate what goes into NodeBB core. Something like this would be great as a plugin (filter:post.parse for the link counter, and widget for the internal links).
This would be a good as a plugin, there should be no reason to love or hate this feature as long as there is some demand for it. That means that maybe its worth implementing. Just like the debate on forum signatures
If anybody wants to implement this they should look at this plugin by @baris, should be a very good starting point imo